From health and the environment to sports, statisticians uncover valuable information that would otherwise remain buried in mountains of data

By Dana Mackenzie, 16:49 PM December 16, 2013

This is one in a series on careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics made possible by support from the Northrop Grumman Foundation.

When Lee-Ann Hayek got her first job at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., she wasn’t expecting to spend her whole career there. She had just received her doctorate in statistics. She recalls thinking it would be fun to work at one of the Smithsonian’s famous museums or research centers. So, “I just wrote them a letter and said, ‘I...